Name: A White Fiucasee
Ingredients: 2 chickens; warm water; veal broth or boiling water; a bundle of sweet herbs

Why it works: Chicken and veal are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,243 recipes. Both carry 3-butanedione, which smells buttery, creamy. The science ↓

A White Fiucasee

Ingredients

2 chickens
warm water
veal broth or boiling water
a bundle of sweet herbs

Directions

Prepare

Cut the chickens into small pieces.
Soak the pieces in warm water to draw out the blood.

Stew

Place the chickens in veal broth or boiling water.
Stew gently with a bundle of sweet herbs.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Chicken + vealtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,243 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-butanedione (buttery, creamy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Chickens: Provide the main protein and body of the stew as they cook slowly.
Veal broth: Supplies liquid and savory depth in which the chicken gently simmers.
Sweet herbs: Add gentle aromatic flavor to the simmering liquid and chicken.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.